Last summer, a game ranger was murdered by poachers at Kruger National Park in South Africa. He and his staff had been tracking the poachers. When the rangers caught up, the poachers opened fire, and he was killed in the fight.

Earlier in the year, police had a shootout with a different group of poachers. Two of the poachers were killed. Poaching, particularly of rhinos, has become a deadly issue.

Since 2009, some 871 rangers and conservationists have died while protecting wildlife, according to the International Ranger Federation (IRF) and the Thin Green Line Foundation. Of the 100 rangers who died on the job last year in Africa and Asia, half of them were murdered by poachers.

“There’s a war on the ground. It’s a life and death situation,” says Dimension Data executive and South African native Bruce “Doc” Watson. “If you don’t get them, they will get you. Rangers have to be trained in a military style. I’m not sure people around the world realize the danger they face every day.”

To reduce that danger, he’s overseen a novel alliance with Cisco, the American technology conglomerate, since 2015. It uses technology to keep big game safe. For now, the experiment is taking place on a private park near Kruger. (Park executives prefer that it not be identified, for safety reasons.) If successful, the program would be expanded to other parks.

Just outside this 62,000-hectare reserve—which is tiny compared to Kruger’s one million hectares—poachers lurk, desperate to hack the horns off of some the park’s most magnificent animals. “One rhino dies every eight hours,” says Watson.

A horn can earn a poacher roughly 150,000 rand—nearly five years’ salary in one day.

Even with those lethal stakes, the criminals kept coming. Five years ago, poaching here was out of control. Considering that a rhino horn fetches $60,000 or more per kilogram on the black market, many thought it was worth the risk.

Sometimes poachers bribed park staff for information or access. Just last year, one ranger, who wishes to remain anonymous for his own safety, noticed that one employee couldn’t look him in the eye. “Poachers had cut him about a thousand dollars to tell them when and where the rangers were patrolling,” he says. “He was my right-hand man, my corporal. That’s the reality we face. It’s brutal.”

A soldier from South Africa’s National Defense Force patrols Kruger National Park.
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An Unprecedented Fall in Poaching

In 2016, the first 18 months that new tactics were deployed, poaching fell by 96 per cent. And while poaching remains an extraordinary problem throughout the country, this year, at this park, not a single rhino has been slaughtered—a figure tracked daily on a board at the park’s headquarters. “Where you are today, these are probably the safest rhinos on the planet,” says conservationist Dave Varty. Some 79 percent of the world’s surviving rhino population lives in South Africa, and this park is richly stocked. Rhinos comprise one of the “big five” game animals, alongside leopards, elephants, lions, and African buffalo.

This fall in poaching is unprecedented. And the reserve’s tactics—a wise mix of new technology, old-fashioned sleuthing, and social enterprise—have been so effective, other countries want to know how it’s done. Now Connected Conservation, as the joint project is known, is extending its work to reserves in Zambia, Mozambique, and Kenya, where elephants and more are under threat. Even New Zealand has expressed an interest in protecting its populations of sharks and rays. “Our ultimate aim is to stop all wildlife poaching,” says Watson. There’s never a single solution, he says. What works in one location may not fit another. “We’re constantly refining our technology, and constantly testing new solutions. It never stands still.”

A transmitter is added to the horn of a sedated rhino in Kenya in 2016.
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A Virtual Fortress

How have they done it? In the least intrusive way possible: by creating a virtual net around the reserve, a point-to-multipoint router network and using the Internet of Things to track people rather than wildlife. (Tagging rhinos can be dangerous and distressing for the beasts. “Misjudge the tranquilizer and they’ll go blind or die,” says Watson.)

"While better tags and more sophisticated sensors are being developed, by the time the alarm is raised, it’s usually too late,” Watson says. “With this solution, we’re being proactive, creating a safe haven for animals to roam freely.”

Wildlife is 60-year-old Watson’s driving passion. “I’m a dreamer. I would like to think we will go down as making a difference to conservation, saving species.” He remembers when the park security was calamitous. Communication across the remote bush was difficult, all processes were manual and staff-operated from a basic brick hut. “It was totally inadequate,” he says.

Rangers have helicopter teams armed and ready. Response times were cut from 30 minutes to seven.

That basic hut is still standing, but what goes on inside it has been transformed, as security information from around the park is transmitted back and analyzed. Data has been weaponized.

Day and night, two rangers sit inside the building, glued to several monitors displaying live feeds from CCTV and thermal cameras along the perimeter that are rugged enough to withstand poachers’ stones. Each of the park’s four gates have been supplied with a local-area network and long-range technology within the reserve, providing Wi-Fi and allowing staff to communicate and see live data while on patrol. All data is stored on a server on site and backed up in the Cloud. Poachers are creatures of habit. “We like to stay one step ahead,” says Watson. “They used to strike in full moon. Then they came in absolute darkness. But that hasn’t worked, so they’ve reverted to incursions at full moon. Their exit points are never the same as their entry points.”

Past efforts to discourage poaching included removing the rhinos’ horns before poachers could get to them.
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Every car that enters the park is fitted with a tracker. Stout, seasoned, and with a thick Afrikaans accent, the head of security plots the progress of his patrols on a map in his “war room.” A wall map marks sightings of rhinos, progress of patrols, and potential hot spots, where poachers will try to break in.

After 22 years in the military, the head of security now enjoys watching the big game from his veranda and has come to appreciate his country’s heritage. “It’s different. I like it.” He applies military-style planning to his security operations. “If visitors drive somewhere they shouldn’t, I’ll know about it.” Registration plates and individuals’ identity numbers are supplied to the reserve before staff allow entry. They’re scanned with reference to a national criminal database. As vehicles enter the park, individuals are scanned with biometric equipment that can recognize criminals. Sniffer dogs—Alsatians and Irish spaniels—are trained to root out ammunition, rhino horns, and weapons stashed in trucks and cars.

Acoustic fiber has been fitted along the electrified fence and sounds an alarm if wires are cut, and thermal cameras capture movements. And magnetic sensors were tested beneath the perimeter fence. These could sound the alarm if someone passes above them with anything metallic, such as a gun, allowing security heads to keep tabs on what all sensors are revealing, wherever they are.

One deterrent to poaching is the tourism business. High-end resorts can bring in $2,000 a night for some suites.
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The Battle for Hearts and Minds

Technology is just one of the layers of security that has made the park a safer place for the animals within. None of this helps unless data is integrated and rangers are equipped and trained to combat poachers, says Watson. A team needs confidence in its members. Without that a reserve is unmanageable. Staff once numbered 24 and security was outsourced. Now there are some 480 people working in the park on security and related projects.

Rangers and their team work hard on “field intelligence.” The head of security will touch base with communities and police forces outside the park, trying to keep tabs on whereabouts of illegal weapons. Rangers have a helicopter team armed and ready, and response times have been cut from 30 minutes to seven. Three armed vehicles patrol the perimeter fence day and night. Each drives some 5,000 miles a month.

In the past year, an estimated 1,000 poaching syndicates existed on the park’s borders, says the park’s security chief. Each horn, which weighs up to seven kilograms, will earn a poacher anything from a five-kilogram bag of cornmeal to roughly 150,000 rand—nearly five years’ salary in one day. “People in the villages started driving smart cars. Drugs came into the area. There was obviously cash floating about,” says the head ranger. With the lure of poaching so strong, “we needed to change people’s mindset toward the park.”

Why should people care about the big game on their doorstep, when they can hardly afford to school their kids? Because there’s an economic future in the high-end travel business that accompanies a well-stocked park, says Varty. Tourism in South Africa is a multibillion-dollar industry, sustaining hundreds of thousands of jobs. Sumptuous rooms at many of the 33 commercial lodges on the reserve are beyond the means of most South Africans; some suites set you back nearly $2,000 a night. Mostly American tourists enjoy safari drives punctuated by sundowner cocktails, breakfasts on the veranda, plunge pools, and bathrooms larger than a small apartment. But some 3,500 people, many from neighboring villages, are employed here. That’s more than in the whole of the vast Kruger National Park, which employs just 2,300. “Profits from tourism are reinvested in social development projects on the outside of the park,” says Varty. Money from the park has helped set up a digital learning center. “These provide world-class access to every single child in villages outside this park. They’re more than just farm schools,” he says.

Without the threat of poaching, the reserves can bring their focus back to nature and preservation.
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Who Will Pay to Spread This Technology to Other Parks?

Dimension Data and Cisco have cofunded this tech initiative. A similar project is about to be rolled out in a private Kenyan reserve, funded by the same alliance, but each location demands a bespoke solution. Poachers may no longer be a threat in this park, but they’ve been driven elsewhere. And that creates carnage, says Watson. While private reserves have a lot of cash behind them, how can state-run parks afford the same levels of technology?

Although technology companies have bankrolled these projects to date, Watson is keen to urge philanthropists and the private sector to put up cash for the future. First, he and his team want to prove the approach works. Then they’ll persuade authorities to get behind the model. “We’ve created a safe haven where animals can roam. We’re conserving wildlife and using it to benefit everybody,” says Varty. “We want this to become a blueprint for the future.”

A microchip is implanted in the stump of a rhino’s horn.
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How Technology Protects Animals

Tagging and Sensors

Tracking devices help parks monitor and manage wildlife. But collars can be bulky, and embedding GPS/GSM tags into an animal’s horns or skin can be invasive. Improved battery life and cheaper, lighter technologies have made tagging easier. A project led by Sigfox Foundation is currently on trial in Zimbabwe. Vets insert sensors about the size of a finger into a rhino’s horn. The sensor emits regular signals, and its batteries last up to five years. Protocols are encrypted to prevent poachers from hacking the networks and locating the animals. Geofencing works alongside location tracking by creating a virtual geographic boundary. If an animal moves beyond it to anywhere it might be at risk, rangers are alerted. New prototypes will experiment with an accelerometer to monitor how the animal moves as opposed to where it is. Acoustic sensors are becoming more robust, too, allowing conservationists to eavesdrop remotely. And light sensors can pick up humans using artificial lights in vast spaces.

Detection Dogs

Sniffer dogs are adept at locating hidden weapons and ivory and tracking poachers breaking into game reserves. Anti-poaching units are beginning to increase the use of trained detection dogs.

Camera Traps

These have been used to monitor numbers of different wildlife species. They’re also used to monitor activity of poachers in reserves. They throw up thousands of images, which require sifting. The faster that sifting can be done, the more effective the cameras will be.

Artificial Intelligence

The Zoological Society London (ZSL) is working with Google Cloud and the San Diego Zoo, using the zoo’s huge archives of images. The project aims to develop platforms for machine-learning algorithms that will be able to identify single species amid thousands of images. ZSL aims to make this A.I. available to conservationists for their own needs.

Satellite Images

Polar bears, whales, penguins, seals, wildebeest, and more have all been captured by satellite remote sensing. Satellites are now cheaper to deploy and offer increasingly higher-resolution images. This could allow conservationists to count and monitor wildlife without disturbing it, but also throws up large amounts of data which requires handling.

Arribada Initiative

Tagging turtles is expensive and logistically challenging. But a new project between ZSL and the Arribada Initiative has produced cheaper, less obtrusive tagging that allows conservationists to follow turtles in the ocean and assess threats faced by turtles off the beaches of Principe Island in West Africa and understand how issues such as plastic pollution affect their behavior. Each tag contains a Raspberry Pi computer, a camera, and a power-management board in a watertight case. Rather than the $3,000 cost of traditional monitoring systems, these cost only $300. Tags take video clips at timed intervals and are attached to turtles via a base plate with a quick-release mechanism, minimizing stress for the turtles. Researchers have been able to witness social interactions between male and other female turtles as well as feeding, foraging, and resting habits. “We’ve also seen encounters with pollution and litter—a significant threat to turtles,” says a ZSL spokesperson.


Drones have huge potential but are limited by battery life and the sheer scale of some wild terrain. They can’t cover it all. They’re also expensive and require trained operators. They can be an effective deterrent, but it’s currently not feasible to fly them around the clock. “They’ve got great promise,” says Stephanie O’Donnel, community manager at conservation technology sharing platform That promise just hasn’t been effectively tapped yet.